Iowa City Fire Dept. Diversity Gap

White Devils (File Photo)

In many unenlightened cities the primary evaluation of the fire department is do they or don't they arrive in a timely manner to squirt water on fires? But in the hipster hamlet of Iowa City, Iowa (no high school students, it's not our capital) they have bigger concerns for their fire department. Like does it employ enough women and present a cultural cross-section representative of anywhere but Iowa?

A quick study of the I.C. fire department shows that is currently infested with 90% white males. That, of course, is simply unacceptable. A cadet program with local high schools is being implemented to help the department close its appalling "diversity gap."

While many simpletons may not see a problem with the lily-white force, this diversity gap has real-world consequences. Two I.C. residents have seen firsthand the carnage wrought by the fire department's lack of diversity. In fact, their home burned to the ground because of it. Helga Miles-Theisen, an assistant woman's track coach at the U of I, and Betsy Miles-Theisen, a physical education teacher at I.C.'s Tate High School, told us about the night their house burned down late last October. 

"The fire started when we left our Hungry-Man dinners in the oven too long," explained Mrz. Miles-Theisen. "When the fire department arrived we noticed right away what an non-diverse group they were. We decided right then and there that we weren't gonna allow them to oppress our home with their big phallic hoses. We locked arms and stood in front of them; an impenetrable wall of flannel. Soon our neighbors joined in and we all sang 'We Shall Overcome.'"

After the house burned to the foundation, the other Mrz. Miles-Theisen recalls how the firefighters added insult to injury. "When the pale-scrotumed savages finally gave up and left, I heard one of them refer to us as 'a couple of dingbats.' I can only assume that's some sort of sexist epithet."

While diversity programs may help remedy these problems, some forward-thinking I.C. citizens are questioning whether the city even needs a fire department. Dr. Moonbeam Grass-Weaver Dysentery, a tenured professor of Transcendental Environmentalist Studies at the U of I spoke in favor of abolishing the city's fire department outright at a recent city council meeting. "First of all, I'm not comfortable with the term Fire-fighter," explained Dr. Dysentery. "Can't we all learn to live in peace and harmony with Fire, as we should with Earth and Wind?"

The city council ran with Dr. Dysentery's idea and unanimously voted to conduct a $625,000 year-long study to better understand the motivation of Fire. Perhaps with the fire department abolished, all those firefighters will have time, while standing in the unemployment line, to reflect upon their years of watery oppression of our fiery brothers and sisters.